Building your Buyer Persona Template: Your Essential Tips

Wednesday 20th December 2017

If you’ve read our previous blog on the topic, you’ll know all about buyer personas and why they’re important. If you haven’t read our previous blog on the topic, go do that. No reading the last page first!

You done? Cool. We’ve got some work to do. First up, you need to figure out how to create your buyer persona template.

How to develop buyer personas

So you’re probably aware that buyer personas are necessary, but that doesn’t mean you know how they’re made. It’s a process that involves a mixture of divination, alchemy, and exotic ritual. Also, talking to people.

Yes, your buyer persona template will mostly be created by speaking to people in various channels and getting their thoughts on what they want, what they like, and what you’re doing – right or wrong.

Some practical methods include:

1. Interviews

This is a fairly easy means of gathering the information you need to develop your persona, and more or less just involves getting customers to come to your office – or speak on the phone – about what they enjoy and dislike about your product or service, and what they might like to see. It’s crucial here to not just talk to customers that you have a good relationship with: those with the most vociferous criticisms can shine a light on what is and isn’t working with your offering.

2. Search your database for clues

Trends, patterns, and historical data can reveal much about how your leads and customers are finding and consuming your content. This is an essential part of developing your buyer persona template.

3. Use your sales team

Your average business development professional will have a good idea of who is – and isn’t – a typical customer. Put their feedback to good use: ask them for some generalisations about their leads and take them into account when developing your buyer persona template.

4. Form an orderly… form

Forms are an extremely good (and non-speculative) way of accumulating relevant information about your customers. They represent a chance to gain unguarded, unembarrassed, undistorted and unfiltered details. Just make sure not to ask for more than you require.

These aren’t the only options at your disposal. You can create focus groups and send surveys; you can conduct competitor research and see who your nearest rivals are targeting; and you will naturally refine your targeting to compensate for your mistakes and adapt to the preferences of your audience over time.

The range of options that works best will depend largely on your business, its resources, and its priorities. Once you’ve determined which personas you want to create, you can save them in HubSpot before moving on to the hard bit: sending specific, targeted communications that resonate with your prospects and compel them to take action.